A touch of modern

Even when it seems that everything is on a slow boat from China (well, a slower one anyway), eventually some long sought after stuff finally arrives. So only six months late because of the Pandemic, Mantic Games kickstarter for modern terrain items, Terrain Crate 2: Crate Expectations has finally arrived.

For this kickstarter, the pledge levels were for crates - you could then choose which crate you wanted in the pledge manager. There were four crates, plus there was an option to build your own from any of the sets (each crate holds four sets - so a total of 16 sets. In addition, some items are in multiple sets. Each set ). Today we'll take a look at two of these, then the other two next time. In no other order than what I grabbed off my table, we'll start with the Morneville Ruins crate.

The sets here are mainly ruins, as implies in the name. Papers Please is the guard post / checkpoint. It makes me think of classic WWII movie checkpoints - or cold war (kind of the guard house in Stripes), or any modern checkpoint area. They would also work in any modern game (pretty much anything since WW I), including futuristic styles. None of these are for miniature wargaming as much as for things like RPG, or board games that use miniatures.

There are two bags of barriers in this set - and the bag contains a sandbag wall, a wall of crates, a pile of tires, a set of oil cans (one of which is knocked over and spilling) and a round road sign.

There is a single baggie with a guard house, guard dog, road barrier, a curved set of sandbags and more stacked crates. Of course since this makes me think of WWII movies, I see the dog as a German Shepherd.

The fourth bag is ruins - a wall with a door, a smaller one with a window, a corner, a pile of rubble ,and a broken telephone pole.

The second set in the crate is Wrecks and Ruins - which is more pieces of ruins.

This set contains 2 pairs of bags - one pair of the same ruins (with the telephone pole) in the Papers Please set, and the other pair contains more ruined pieces, including a wrecked motorcycle, broken statue and a barricade made of junk.

Crumbling Cottages is the third set, and as the name suggests it is broken and ruined interior pieces.

Again, there are two pairs of bags. The first pair are some wall pieces, an overturned table, and a chest of drawers with one pulled out and sitting on top. Oh, and a sad little torn teddy bear, with a bit of the stuffing poking out. This is one of the nice things about these sets - depending on which ones you get - there are both broken and intact pieces of the same item - the small chest and teddy bear are found before they were wrecked in Bellevue Square crate.

There other pair of bags contains more ruined pieces from inside a cottage - a couch, a large stuffed chair, a china cabinet, a desk, and a broken sink and toilet. (Some nice details here with the cushions, the broken drawer on the desk, and the broken bowl for the toilet and the sink from the bathroom.

It seems there were only enough ruins for three sets, so the fourth in this crate is the Mourneville Church - items to fill your chapel.

Once again, this is two pairs of bags. One contains the alter, a pulpit, a baptismal font, two pews, a broken pew, a collection plate, a bible and a stand (to set the bible or collection plate on).

The second set is the graveyard outside the church. There are two full graves, three headstones, another broken headstone, a statue of an angel (no, not a weeping angel, which I guess is a good thing!), and an above ground crypt (I don't remember the correct name of this piece, which would sit inside of a mausoleum.) Then as a little added bonus, there is a severed hand (if you want to do a "Night of the Living Dead" type of scene with a corpse just starting to rise from it's grave).

A bit happier set is Market Day.

The first is the actual market. This contains a large produce stall, a telephone booth (the door opens and you can see the telephone inside of it) and a statue (which looks to be the intact version of the ruin in the Wrecks and Ruins set). The market stall is a modern day version of the existing 'medieval' market stalls set that Mantic released as a retail exclusive last year.

The market stall is great because is has a large number of boxes of product to fill it out as you like.

There are two bags that appear to be part of an indoor market. There is a large stocked shelf, a counter, a stack of cans, a pile of boxes, a pile of papers, a measuring scale, two different bins and a cash register.

The final bag is outside the market - a street sign, a lamppost, a table with an umbrella cover and two chairs, a sidewalk sign for the cafe', a fire hydrant, a call box and a bicycle. A really nice set to set up your street cafe' outside the local market.

The next set is the Bellevue Hospital - a ton of stuff for a more modern hospital.

There is a bag for the office / nurses station, which has two desks, two chairs, a copy machine, a plant, a water cooler, a file cabinet and two computers (both a desktop and a laptop).

There are three bags for the actual hospital - each has two beds (one made up, one that looks like someone just got out of it), a chair, an IV stand, a body bag, an instrument table, and a patient table (one that is designed to slide under the bed for the patient to use) and a vase of flowers.

Then comes the cosy cottage. This has some of the pieces that are ruined in the ruins set.

There is a bag with a double bed, a couch, a standing wardrobe and a teddy bear (still intact and ready to snuggle with a child).

Then there is a bag with more furniture - a large buffet, a stuffed chair, a lamp, an end table, a twin bed, a small chest of drawers and a hope chest. The stuffed chair and small chest are intact versions of the ruined pieces.

Moving into the kitchen is a bag with the china cabinet, sink, stove and kitchen counter. Plus there is a stack of cakes, a knife block, and what looks to be a turkey or ham ready to serve to your guests.

The final bag contains some of the other miscellaneous pieces you find in a house - the furnace, an ice chest, a sink, a toilet (with two different types of tanks for it), a bathtub, a spilled canister of something, a small trash can, a grate and a pair of cellar doors.

The fourth set is the Peaceful Park

It includes the bag of cafe' pieces from the Market Day set, as well as a playground / picnic bag that has a teeter-totter, merry-go-round (or the merry-go-throw-up as we affectionately knew it) a picnic blanket, picnic basket, bottle of wine, plate of sandwiches, garbage can and a duck. Yes, a duck.

Finally there are two bags of trees. This has two trees, a stump, a face that fits onto one of the trees (if you wanted it to talk), and some mushrooms.

I've already figured that these trees will be good to use for a table for Kings of War or Vanguard (I can always use more trees!).

For fun, I took some pictures to show the 'intact' furniture and the 'ruined' versions.

Well, first the 'outside' stuff. I didn't realize at first that the broken shack was actually the guard house ( now it reminds me even more of Stripes - as the guard house there gets "Blowed Up Sir!".